The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-10-15

Christ all kinds of absurdities and bias
phemies, he says There have been
men calling themselves Christians, who
have said that the sweetest music of
heaven would be the wailings of the
lost in hell There have been men
calling themselves Christian, who have
maintained that God created the vast
majority of mankind for the purpose of
consigning them to everlasting flames,
in order that he might be as they
strangely term it, glorified. There have
been men calling themselves Christians
who have asserted that the grossest
sins they might please to commit, after
what they dignifed with the name of
conversion, would be matters of the
most perfect indifference.
"Now, so long as any one believes that
such men are the egenuinerepresentatives
of the teachings of Christ, he cannot be
censured for refusing to call himself a
Christian. You remember in GOethe's
wonderful drama, when Marguerite
asks about Faust's theological opinions,
he tells her he cannot accept any Of the
religions with which he is acquainted.
She asks him why? He answers, Even
from Righteousness meaning that these
religions appeared to him to violate
what he believed to be eternally sacred
moral principles All honor to the men
who refuse to accept such blasphemous
representations of Deity!"
Again, he says in a sermon upon
Radical Misconceptions of Christian
ity:" ITO say that right doing is not
important, is to fatty contradict the
words of Christ. He has never been
more horribly blasphemed than by
those professed disciples who insinuate
that his gospel is not gospel of right
doing"
"'The gospel says Ruskin, Let his
life rule your lives, is eternally true and
salutary. The gospel, let his life be
instead of your life, is eternally false
and damnatOry.' Ruskin is right. The
one is the gospel of Christ, the other is
the gospel of the devil"
Concerning the atonement, he writes:
$50 far from the sufferings of Christ
having been arbitrarily inflicted by a
capricious and revengeful God, they are
the most striking publications. of a
universal law. Clrist's suffering was
not sacrifice which God exacted, that
he might be appeased. No, it was a
sacrifice which he provided that he
might be revealed"
He has no sympathy with the COM
mon notion that Christ's purpose was
to save men from the punishment which
they deserve, that the Almighty here
after may treat the wicked as if they
had been good, and take them to heaven
when they ought by rights to be in hell.
"TO shield men from punishment they
deserve is not only unjust, it is cruel :;
for the suffering of punishment is need
ed to cure them of their sin. Punish
ment is an essential part of salvation.
If God be love he mustpunish. Hence
the fact Of punishment is not an argu-
ment against the divine benevOlence,
but an additional argument for it.
"On the one hand, retributive fire
consuming only to destroy, would be
diabolical.
"Onthe other hand love which with
held the punishment essential to our
well-being, would be equally destruc-
tive. 1t would harm us while meaning
to be kind. Out of pity it would ruin
us. The love which consumes in order
to save, is alone worthy of being called
divine. AS long as the universe con-
tains single sinner the fire of love
must be a consuming fire." We fnd
him in other places advocating the
broad truths toward which the best
thought of our time is tending, All
religions are to him revealed religions;
and what is absolutely true in one re-
ligion cannot be absolutely false when
found in another.
But 1 need not multiply these quota
tions. l think 1 have already shown
these works to be of permanent value
filled as they are with the rational, help
full and hopeful ideas for which we
stand.